Steven Gerrard has called his ‘own performance really good’ at stages of his time in charge of Aston Villa.
Gerrard was sacked at Aston Villa after a disappointing start to the 2021-22 campaign, that saw The Villans win just two of their opening 12 games to sit above the Premier League’s relegation places on goal difference in October.
The former England captain had led Villa away from trouble the previous season after taking the reins from Dean Smith, but saw his growing coaching reputation – that included winning a first league title in nine years at Rangers – damaged after a poor end to his time with the Midlands club.
Gerrard is now coaching Saudi Pro League side Al-Ettifaq and said he ‘respects the opinion’ that he has moved to the Middle East to repair his reputation, though believes his time at Villa has been unfairly judged on reflection.
“I respect that opinion. I don’t think it’s unfair,” Gerrard told The Telegraph.
“I don’t think it’s too harsh because when you suffer a set-back and a knock you have got to look yourself in the mirror. You’ve got to have a look at where you have gone wrong and try and improve.
“So, of course I want to bounce back from that. But I didn’t want to jump into something that didn’t feel right and take an unnecessary risk when I am a young coach. I’ve had success up to a certain point. I actually felt my own performance at Villa was really good. I actually felt I went to the next level in terms of what I had learnt from Rangers. I felt like I had grown.
“But we had a bad run of results. I have to own that and take full responsibility for that. I have to learn from my mistakes. Maybe do things slightly differently and grow and evolve. That’s the only way you can move on from a set-back or a knock.
“I think when top footballers are not performing at their level I am not going to pull any punches. We had players who weren’t giving what I felt they should have been giving at the time and that’s my responsibility.
“Villa is a fantastic club. It was an incredible opportunity at the time and I have nothing bad to say. The owners gave me a fantastic chance.
“The initial period, our form was top eight in the Premier League and obviously the opinion of me now from a lot of people will be that I failed, if you like, but I know there was a period there where we got an awful lot of things right. We had the team doing okay.”
